Distribution warehouses handle large volumes of products, which are often packed and palletized onto pallets on site. High volume manufacturers with a wide product range, such as those in the beverage industry, routinely ship orders after a customer has ordered a variety of specific products. Typically, systems that handle the products consist of pallets containing different assortments of shipping cases, palletizing and depalletizing stations and a series of conveyor belts interconnecting the system. While this type of system has worked well in the past, with the advent of more diversified products, they have become time-consuming and labor intensive. System designers are continuously looking for new technology to reduce the time, and manpower required preparing these orders.
Several order handling systems exist, a few examples of which are as follows:                U.S. Pat. No. 6,640,953, issued Nov. 4, 2003, to Brouwer et al. for “Controlled Gravity Accumulation Conveyor”;        U.S. Pat. Application Publication No. 2003/0176944, published Sep. 18, 2003 to Stingel III et al. for “Automated Container Storage and Delivery System”;        U.S. Pat. Application Publication No. 2003/0138312, published Jul. 24, 2003 to Watson et al. for “Depalletizer for a Material Handling System”;        U.S. Pat. No. 6,425,226, issued Jul. 30, 2002, to Kirschner for “System and Method for Order Packing”;        U.S. Pat. No. 5,934,864, issued Aug. 10, 1999, to Lyon et al. for “Case Picking System”;        U.S. Pat. No. 5,361,889, issued Nov. 8, 1994 to Howell et al. for “Apparatus for Merging Multiple Lanes of Product”;        U.S. Pat. No. 5,018,073, issued May 21, 1991, to Goldberg for “High Density Loaded Sorting Conveyors”; and        U.S. Pat. No. 2,808,946, issued Oct. 8, 1957, to Just el al. for “Warehouse Equipment”.        
The aforesaid designs suffer from a number of important drawbacks. Disadvantageously, many of the designs are complex and include many conveyor systems with multiple curves, which cover a large area thereby making inefficient use of a warehouse floor space. Moreover, the conveyor systems are often electrically powered, the use of which may be prohibitively expensive. Some systems appear to be designed specifically for conveying and mixing specific product types and include complex counting and dispensing mechanisms. In addition, the expense of operating the powered systems may be too high to yield sufficient payback when compared to a more manual method.
Thus, there is a need for an improved system for order handling.